


Homesick.

by Kanexan



Series: Undertale Secret Santa-Winter, 2018 [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Frisk And Chara Are Friends, Gen, Light Angst, Male Frisk (Undertale), Narrator Chara (Undertale), Nonbinary Chara (Undertale), Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, chara is a ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-09-25 17:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17125667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanexan/pseuds/Kanexan
Summary: Chara is homesick. Frisk is at home, sick. Plenty of time for a good, long talk...





	Homesick.

**Author's Note:**

> This is another gift for Elsa12TMNT. Merry Christmas! I liked your prompts too much to just do one; I wanted to do the Mettaton one as well, but I ran out of time.  
> Hope you enjoy it! It was fun to write.

Frisk watched the snow falling lightly outside his window, swirling and creating intricate patterns as it blew against the glass. The ever-shifting designs were a pleasant distraction from his current reality of coughing, sneezing, a never-ending supply of chicken soup, and watching reruns of one of Mettaton's less-creative game shows from back in the Underground. It wasn't necessarily a  _bad_ show, but there was only so many times you could watch it before it started getting stale and Frisk had _definitely_ crossed that point. Frisk suspected it wasn't even a real clown in the dunk tank.

He shifted in bed, moving the tray and making a little bit of lukewarm soup slosh out of the half-empty bowl. He wanted to change the channel, but the old TV didn't have a remote anymore; he'd have to get up and change it manually, and he wasn't sure he had the energy to stand up and make the ten steps to the dresser with the TV on it. 

It was just so  _boring_ , sitting in bed all day! 

_*Yes, this is indeed extremely boring. Don't you have any books or something?_

"Hey, Chara. Wondered when you'd show up. Sleeping?" Frisk said, idly. 

_*I'm... not actually sure if I can even do that. No, I was merely retreating into the back ends of your mind, fleeing the utter banality of this abomination of a show. I mean, c'mon, that's not even a real clown. It's clearly Burgerpants!_

"Heh, yeah." Frisk started to laugh, but it quickly morphed into a series of hacking coughs.

_*Man, you've really got it bad, huh. Mom said it was the flu, right? Well, I hope you get better soon, because this is idiotically mind-numbing._

"...yup." Frisk said, sniffling. After wiping his nose, he continued, "Mom says I'm on full bed rest, which means no going downstairs to get a book or two. I can ask her for a couple next time she comes up, but she was just up here like five minutes ago, so she won't come back for a bit."

_*Dangit. Ugh... this sucks..._

  Frisk had the mental image of Chara crossing their arms and huffing. Frisk knew they got touchy when they were bored, but this was more than normal. "Hey, can you do the ghost thing?" he asked, "It's... it's still kinda weird, talking to someone I can't see."

_*Fine, I guess..._

Suddenly, Chara appeared, sitting on the side of the bed. Their slightly-transparent, sweater-clad arms were indeed crossed, and they were indeed huffing. "There, happy? You know this isn't real, right? It's just some sort of mental projection thing."

"Yeah, I know. It's just easier to hold a conversation this way, really. You seem kinda upset, Chara... what's going on?" Frisk asked, concerned. 

 " _Nothing_ , Frisk. It's nothing. I'm _fine._ " Chara said, testily.

"Oh come on, you can tell me, Chara!" Frisk said, sitting up in bed and shifting slightly closer to them. "You've been in my head for months. We've talked about  _everything_  together! Heck, I can  _feel_ most of your emotions, and I'm pretty sure you can do the same thing to me! You got me through the Underground; I'd have never been able to make it without you. You know you can trust me to keep secrets by now, and I'm your friend. I wanna help you!"

They looked at Frisk's eager face, his eyes full of enthusiasm at the prospect of helping Chara, and sighed again.

"Well, I certainly know  _that_ face. That's the "I'm going to be insufferable about this until I get answers, because I'm just too damn determined to be helpful for my own good" face, and I'm not in the mood for having some sort of protracted battle which you'd win anyways. But please..." Chara paused for a second, seeming to debate one last time whether or not sharing was a good idea. "...please don't tell anyone. Or do any of the things that I  _know_ you're going to want to do once I tell you. Promise?"

"Promise! You know I'll keep your secrets, anyways!"

"It's not... it's not a secret, really. Well, not in the ordinary way, I guess. It's just that I..." The ghost paused, perhaps wrestling one last time whether or not to tell Frisk looked out the window at the snow-filled sky, then continued, "...I miss home, Frisk."

"What do you mean? This  _is_  home, isn't it?" Frisk asked, confused.

"No, no, not  _here_ _._ This is  _your_ home, with Toriel. I mean  _home,_ back with Mom and Dad, and they loved each other and were together, and with... and with  _him._  I... I miss him  _so much,_  Frisk. I didn't treat him right, and..." Chara paused, tears in their eyes and a quaver in their voice by this point, and then continued "...and I can't apologize for it. That's the worst of it, Frisk! I can't go back and do it over again, can't treat him like he deserved, can't tell him how much he meant to me."

Frisk began to speak, but Chara cut him off. "And don't tell me I can apologize to Flowey about it, because I  _can't._  I  _won't!_  He's  _not_  Asriel, not the Asriel I knew! Apologizing to him means nothing, because he... he can't even feel mad at me. He can't tell me off for how bad I was to him. He can't tell me I'm unforgivable like I deserve, and can't do that stupid, irritating thing the old Asriel would and forgive me in spite of that. Not and  _mean_  them, anyways. But... wouldn't that be worse, even? That I apologized for all the terrible things I did to him, and he  _forgave me?_ I don't... I don't want him to. I want him to be mad at me. I want to know that..."

Chara was openly starting to cry by this point. Frisk set aside the tray, soup spilling out of the bowl again, and shifted down the bed next to them. He tried patting them on the back, but his hand went straight through their body. Even in the first stages of crying, Chara couldn't help but choke out a laugh at his mistake. "You... you  _still_  don't get that whole "intangible" thing, do you..."

"Eh, I'm learning." Frisk said, giving a small laugh before getting serious again. "But Chara, listen to me. You aren't being fair to Asriel if you don't want him to forgive you. That's asking him to keep doing what  _you_ want him to do, rather than letting him make his own choices. If... if you do ever get the chance, you need to make your peace with his decisions rather than trying to make him say what  _you_ think you deserve, even if it's harsher than what _he_ thinks you deserve."

For a second, Chara looked angry at Frisk. Then, they took a deep breath, and nodded. "Yeah, I... I guess you're right. But... it still doesn't change the rest of it. I still miss back then, when the four of us were happy... well, most of the time, anyways, and everyone was together. Now I'm in your head, Asriel's in a pot, Mom barely speaks to Dad, and there's no way for any of it to ever go back to the way it was."

"Do you want to visit New Home again, once I'm feeling better?" Frisk asked, softly. "I know it won't really make up for any of that, and I know you said you didn't want me to do anything, but I think it might help."

Chara looked at him, and gave a small laugh. "Yeah... yeah, that might be nice. That's a good idea, Frisk. Y'know, when I said that, I figured you'd want to set Mom and Dad up on a blind date or something, or find some way to bring Asriel back through reloading shenanigans, or get me a body or something. Something crazy and stupid and wildly unworkable, which you may or may not make work anyways."

"Wait, those are  _options_ _?_ I can _do_  that?" Frisk asked eagerly.

" ** _NO. DON'T YOU DARE._** "

"Oh fine, I won't..." Frisk said, eyes mirthful behind a facade of indifference, "...for now."

If Chara was physically capable of tackling Frisk they almost certainly would have made the effort, sickness and soup be damned. Instead, they settled for merely sticking out their tongue and making a litany of rude gestures in Frisk's general direction, provoking horse but riotous laughter from him that—again—quickly became a series of hacking coughs.

"Frisk, dear? Are you alright?" Toriel called from downstairs, concern evident in her voice.

"Yeah, mom! It's just... just the show. It's funny." Frisk said back.

"Oh, alright! I just wanted to make sure, dear. I'll be up in a bit to check your temperature, okay?"

"Okay..."

After that, Frisk settled back into his old position at the head of the bed and slid under the heavy covers. "That'll be alright. I'll be sure to..." He yawned heavily."...sure to ask her about the New Home thing, once she comes up next, and I'll see if I can rustle up a book or two for you. Since she knows what I read, it probably won't be as big as you're used to, but..."

Another yawn.

"Sorry, Chara, I'm just... feeling a little sleepy right now. Probably whatever bug this is."

 _*Alright, then I'll let you_ _nap, buddy_ _._  Chara said, having left the ghost form when Frisk was burrowing under the covers.  _*_ _G'night, Frisk._  

"G'night, Chara. Talk to you in a bit..." Frisk murmured, and fell asleep.

 


End file.
